Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1887-01-22
PORPOISE CATCHING.
A Business that Would Be Profitable If
one Could Catch Enough Porpoises.

OnS Could eaten enough fOrpOises.
A Groton man, BENJAMIN J. Gardiner, Of
Poquonnoc Bridge, who dwells at the head
| of Paquonnoc estuary, in which oysters
are raised on poles stuck in the mud, is try
| ing hard to do paying business catching
| porpoises. All fishermen try to catch a
| porpoise if a chance offers, because it is a
valuable fish, but no one ever tried TO make
! porpoise catching a vocation until Gardi-
ner undertook to do it. His neighbors
| laughed at him. A year ago or more Cap
tain Gardiner fitted out a couple.of sail
boats, hired a crew of eleven men, had a
coarse seine made half mile in length or
longer, and sailed away 10 the porpoise
grounds. Nearly all salt water harbors
and estuaries are frequented by the fish,
which come putting and tumbling into
them in chase OF their prevail kinds OF
small fish. But the best ground is Coecles
Harbor at Shelter Island.
In the waters of this haIbor hundreds of
porpoises are sometimes seen, and wild
and rollicking scene it is, with acres of the
sleek, black animals tipping over and over
like floating carboys. as they plunge after
their food. To landsman they seem to be
doing il for fun, but it is serious fun TO them
and to smaller fish. Shoals of mackerel,
herring, bony fish, and in the season, por-
gies, are their game, and the sharp jaws Of
the porpoise, each armed with forty-fve or
fifty teeth, do murderous work that stains
the sea with crimson. Often mackerel and
herring shoals are driven nearly on the
beaches by their remorseieSs pursuers, or
up broad rivers almost to the head of tide
water. Porpoises have been seen in the
Thames river as far north as Kitemaug
seven or eight miles above the city, in pur-
suit of flying bony fish. Captain Gardiner
sailed into Coecles harbor one day last
summer, dropped his big seine overheard,
and next morning his men rolled half a
dozen fat porpoises upon the beach. Sew
eral other casts were made but none was as
successful as Captain Gardiner had antici-
pated that they would be. All through the
summer he fished for porpoises, but with
only partial success. The big fellows broke
through his stout netting and away the
whole shoal rushed out through the open
ing. They toppled over his seine and
wound themselves up in il, and so made it
practically useless to stop the escape of the
other fish until the snarl was Strengthened
Capt. Gardiner lost money trying to
catch porpoises last season, but he went to
work again this spring with redoubled en-
ergy. He has not been successful yet the
catches have not remunerated him for the
expenses of the trip. A week or more ago
his crew had two days of fine luck, taking
nine porpoises on one day, and twenty-five
on the next. So, not yet, have Capt Gar
diners efforts decided the question whether
il will pay to Systematically hunt porpoises,
but he means to continue the business.
The biggest porpoise he has caught weighed
500 pounds. The little ones weigh not
more than so or 100 pounds.
Not particle of the porpoise is wasted
in preparing it for the market. First, the
skin is taken off, which is superior even to
alligator hide for carriage leather and for
shoes. The skin is nearly an inch thick,
but it is planed down until it becomes
nearly translucent. The blubber is tried
out, yielding an oil equal to the best sperm
oil for lubricating, and two other grades are
made from toe head and jaw, both being
superior to that from the blubber. The
jaw oil is used by jewelers. and watchmak-
ers, who pay at the rate of SIS gallon for
it.
The meat is cut out and sold to those who
are fond of it. There is a tradition that
anciently it was so highly esteemed that
it was in demand for the table of royalty
In the time of Queen Elizabeth it was
served to the mobiles of England with
bread crumbs and vinegar. 1t is a chief
dainty of the Greenlanders. 1t is dark
colored and bloody. The carcass of the
porpoise is thrown in with menhaden, and
a little more oil is tried out of it, after
which it becomes fertilizer. An average
porpoise is worth in all about $40
The trap commonly used to catch them
with is large net of strong rope, which is
stretched over large area of water lager
beer barrels being attached to the edges at
intervals. Bv an annaratus worked from
the shore the barrels are forcibly submerged
while the porpoises are coming into the
feeedciiiIng grounds, and when number of
them are directly over the net the strain on
the barrels issrelsxed, and they rise to the
surface behind the fish, which find them
selves imprisoned in a pen. 1t costs about
$1,000 to equip frst-class trap.-N. Y.
Sun.